Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Harney Peak ... Harris, Sir Arthur Travers, 1st Baronet

Harney Peak: highest point (7,242 feet [2,207 metres]) in the Black Hills and in South Dakota, U.S., and the highest point in North America east of the Rocky Mountains. It is found about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Custer near Mount ...
Harnosand: city and port, capital of the administrative lan (county) of Vasternorrland, northeastern Sweden, on the Gulf of Bothnia, near the mouth of Angerman Stream. It is set amid hills partly on the mainland and partly on Harnon, an island just ...
Haro Strait: passage of the eastern North Pacific, lying between Vancouver and Saturna islands of the province of British Columbia, Canada (west), and San Juan and Stuart islands of the state of Washington, U.S. (east). Part of the United States-Canadian border passes ...
Haro, Luis Mendez de: chief minister and favourite of King Philip IV (reigned 1621-65), who failed to stem the decline of Spanish power and prestige.
Harold I: king of England from 1035 to 1040.
Harold II: also called Harold Godwineson, or Godwinson last Anglo-Saxon king of England. A strong ruler and a skilled general, he held the crown for nine months in 1066 before he was killed at the Battle of Hastings by Norman invaders under ...
harp: stringed instrument in which the resonator, or belly, is perpendicular, or nearly so, to the plane of the strings. Each string produces one note, the gradation of string length from short to long corresponding to that from high to low ...
harp seal: (Pagophilus groenlandicus, sometimes Phoca groenlandica), migratory northern seal of the family Phocidae, found in the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. The adult male is light grayish or yellowish with brown or black on the head and a similarly coloured U-shaped ...
Harpagus: Median general who first served Astyages, the last king of the Median Empire, but later deserted to the Achaemenid king Cyrus II.
Harper: town and Atlantic Ocean port, southeastern Liberia, West Africa. It is situated on Cape Palmas. The cape was settled (1833) by a group of North American freed slaves sponsored by the Maryland Colonization Society. In 1857 troubles with the local ...
Harper Brothers: printers and members of a distinguished American publishing firm which exerted a significant influence on letters and politics throughout the 19th century.
Harper's Magazine: monthly magazine published in New York City, one of the oldest literary and opinion journals in the United States. It was founded in 1850 as Harper's New Monthly Magazine, a literary journal, by the printing and publishing ...
Harper, Frances E.W.: American author, orator, and social reformer who was notable for her poetry, speeches, and essays on abolitionism, temperance, and woman suffrage.
Harper, Ida A. Husted: journalist and suffragist, remembered for her writings in the popular press for and about women and for her contributions to the documentation of the woman suffrage movement.
Harper, Michael S.: African-American poet whose sensitive, personal verse is concerned with ancestral kinship, jazz and the blues, and the separation of the races in America.
Harper, Robert Almer: American biologist who identified the details of reproduction in the development of the fungus ascospore (sexually produced spores of fungi in the class Ascomycetes).
Harper, Stephen: Canadian politician, prime minister of Canada from 2006.
Harper, William Rainey: U.S. Hebraist, who served as leader of the Chautauqua Institution and first president of the University of Chicago.
Harpers Ferry: town, Jefferson county, in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, U.S., at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers, in the Blue Ridge Mountains where West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland converge. When the town was part of Virginia, it ...
Harpignies, Henri: French landscape painter and engraver whose finest works include watercolours showing the influence of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
harpoon: barbed spear used to kill whales, tuna, swordfish, and other large sea creatures, formerly thrown by hand but now, in the case of whales, shot from especially constructed guns.
harpsichord: keyboard musical instrument in which strings are set in vibration by plucking. It was one of the most important keyboard instruments in European music from the 16th through the first half of the 18th century.
Harpur, Charles: early Australian poet whose verse, though often lacking intensity and originality, reflects a gentle and sincere personality.
Harpy: in Greco-Roman classical mythology, a fabulous creature, probably a wind spirit. The presence of harpies as tomb figures, however, makes it possible that they were also conceived of as ghosts. In Homer's Odyssey they were winds that carried people away. ...
harquebus: first gun fired from the shoulder, a smoothbore matchlock with a stock resembling that of a rifle. The harquebus was invented in Spain in the mid-15th century. It was often fired from a support, against which the recoil was transferred ...
Harran: ancient city of strategic importance, now a village, in southeastern Turkey. It lies along the Balikh River, 24 miles (38 km) southeast of Urfa. The town was located on the road that ran from Nineveh to Carchemish and was regarded ...
Harrier: single-engine, "jump-jet" fighter-bomber designed to fly from combat areas and aircraft carriers and to support ground forces. It was made by Hawker Siddeley Aviation and first flew on Aug. 31, 1966, after a long period of development. (Hawker Siddeley became ...
harrier: any of about 11 species of hawks of the subfamily Circinae (family Accipitridae). They are plain-looking, long-legged, and long-tailed birds of slender build that cruise low over meadows and marshes looking for mice, snakes, frogs, small birds, and insects. Harriers ...
Harrigan, Edward: American actor, producer, and playwright, half of the comedy team of Harrigan and Hart.
Harriman, Edward Henry: American financier and railroad magnate, one of the leading builders and organizers in the era of great railroad expansion and development of the West during the late 19th century.
Harriman, Florence Jaffray: U.S. diplomat, noted for her service as U.S. minister to Norway during World War II.
Harriman, W Averell: statesman who was a leading U.S. diplomat in relations with the Soviet Union during World War II and the Cold War period following World War II.
Harrington, James: English political philosopher whose major work, The Common-wealth of Oceana (1656), was a restatement of Aristotle's theory of constitutional stability and revolution.
Harrington, William Stanhope, 1st earl of, Viscount Petersham of Petersham: British diplomat and statesman in the Walpole-Pelham era.
Harriot, Thomas: mathematician, astronomer, and investigator of the natural world.
Harris movement: largest mass movement toward Christianity in West Africa, named for the prophet William Wade Harris (c. 1850-1929), a Grebo of Liberia and a teacher-catechist in the American Episcopal mission.
Harris Treaty: (July 29, 1858), agreement that secured commercial and diplomatic privileges for the United States in Japan and constituted the basis for Western economic penetration of Japan. Negotiated by Townsend Harris, first U.S. consul to Japan, it provided for the opening ...
Harris, Alexander: English author whose Settlers and Convicts; or, Recollections of Sixteen Years' Labour in the Australian Backwoods (1847) is an outstanding fictional account of life in Australia.
Harris, Barbara Clementine: African American clergywoman and social activist who was the first female bishop in the Anglican Communion.
Harris, Benjamin: English bookseller and writer who was the first journalist in the British-American colonies.
Harris, Emmylou: American singer and songwriter who ranged effortlessly among folk, pop, rock, and country-and-western styles, added old-time sensibilities to popular music and sophistication to country music, and established herself as "the queen of country rock."
Harris, Frank: Irish-born American journalist and man of letters best known for his unreliable autobiography, My Life and Loves, 3 vol. (1923-27), the sexual frankness of which was new for its day and created trouble with censors in Great Britain and the ...
Harris, George Washington: American humorist who combined the skill of an oral storyteller with a dramatic imagination.
Harris, Joel Chandler: American author, creator of the folk character Uncle Remus.
Harris, Louis: pollster, public-opinion analyst, and columnist. He founded Louis Harris and Associates, Inc. (1956), and LH Research (1992) and was director of the Time Magazine-Harris Poll (1969-72).
Harris, Marvin: American anthropological historian and theoretician known for his work on cultural materialism. His fieldwork in the Islas ("Islands") de la Bahia and other regions of Brazil and in Mozambique focused on the concept of culture.
Harris, Patricia Roberts: American public official, the first African American woman named to a U.S. ambassadorship and the first as well to serve in a presidential cabinet.
Harris, Renatus: also called Rene Harris English organ builder whose fine instruments were highly regarded by his contemporaries. Harris was the son and grandson of organ builders; his maternal grandfather was Thomas Dallam (c. 1575-c. 1630), three of whose sons also became ...
Harris, Richard: Irish actor of stage and screen who became known as much for his offstage indulgences as for his flamboyant performances.
Harris, Roy: composer, teacher, and a prominent representative of nationalism in U.S. music. He came to be regarded as the musical spokesman for the American landscape.
Harris, Sir Arthur Travers, 1st Baronet: British air officer who initiated and directed the "saturation bombing" that the Royal Air Force inflicted on Germany during World War II.